The Dark Knight

The first time I watched this movie I thought it was slow and clunky. The second time I sat through The Dark Knight I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Watching a movie can be like that, relying as much on your own state of mind as the movie itself to form an impression.)

Batman is one of the most complex characters in comic books. He’s a character who can’t forgive his own powerlessness at the crime that took away the lives of his parents. That shame drives an inconsolable rage against a faceless enemy from whom he can never extract revenge. While fighting monsters, he treads the line between becoming a monster.

But there is a kind of monster he is determined to never become; the monster that took his parents’ lives: a murderer.

This determination underlines the story arcs of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne struggles to prove that violence can be fought without resorting to murder. In The Dark Knight, that determination is pushed to the limits as he fights against an adversary who wants Batman to kill him.

The Joker’s practically asking for Batman to take his life, when he stands stock still in the Batpod’s way. It would have been both easy and convenient for Batman to run him down. But he chooses instead the right over the convenient.

At the end of The Dark Knight, you’re left feeling a lingering incompleteness. Does the hero really win his victory? Batman catches the Joker, but he’s lost his love, his friend and his reputation in the process.

The one thing Bruce Wayne has clearly won is his integrity. Wayne holds on to the conviction he wins from Batman Begins, and proves to himself that he can overcome the enemy without becoming the enemy.

He pays a high price to sacrifice public victory for personal victory, but the willingness to pay that price makes him the dark knight.